James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

Tarrin reached up and put the palm of his paw against her cheek, swallowing up the delicate side of her face in his huge paw.

And so Tarrin stumbled into his room late that night, with his shoulders throbbing, but feeling very good about the whole thing. Allia never told him that it would be her Holy Mother Goddess herself that would put the brands on him. She had reached out from wherever it was she was at and touched him with her power, and that had burned the symbols into his shoulders just the same way they appeared on Allia. The pain was part of the rite, an acceptance of the pains and trials that came with adulthood, and he'd been warned that to scream was unseemly, and that he had to remain still and now squirm, for the branding was not instantaneous. If one moved or flinched, it was an evasion of the duties of adulthood, and that person took a bad brand, and was ridiculed and scorned. Tarrin had a bit of an advantage there, for his Were-cat nature allowed him to endure quite a bit more pain than a standard human. He still nearly blacked out though, which, he'd discovered, was an honorable thing. Blacking out was not in his control, and it proved that the person being branded was strong enough to hold still even under such intense pain. People who blacked out, curiously, did not take a bad brand, even though they did move. Tarrin suspected that the Holy Mother Goddess had a great deal to do with that.

Tarrin just worried that his regeneration would heal over the charred burn marks.

"You're in late," Dar noted as he turned to look at Tarrin from the writing desk.

Tarrin hunched over a bit, his tail drooping. Even putting himself in the water of the bathing pool hadn't eased the residual pain after the branding.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Allia branded me," he said shortly.

" What ?"

"She asked me to become her brother, and I said yes. The brands were so that could happen. I couldn't be her brother until I was seen as an adult in the eyes of her people, and that meant I had to be branded. It meant alot to her, and to me."

"You take friendship seriously," Dar said, getting up. "I'll go steal some ice from the cold room," he offered. "That should take most of the bite out of it."

"I appreciate it," he said gratefully.

He returned a bit later with a small bowl of ice, which was wrapped into a kerchief and applied to one shoulder at a time. The ice blissfully numbed his throbbing skin, and he leaned back on his bed, back against the wall, sighing in almost ecstatic relief.

"That must have really hurt," Dar said.

"It was worth it," Tarrin said. "I can't even begin to explain the relationship I have with Allia, Dar. It goes way beyond simple friendship. I've never had so deep a connection with anyone. We love each other about as much as two people can who aren't married."

"Well, so long as it makes you happy, then I say congratulations," he said with a smile.

"It's not like we're betrothed, Dar," Tarrin chuckled.

"I know," he said. "But in its own way, it's just as profound, I think."

"More or less, yes," he agreed. "I did more than profess love for her. I promised to be like her own brother in every way. And family can be just as close as married couples."

"And in such a short time," he said. "What will your mother say?"

Tarrin gave him a look, then laughed. "We said the same thing," he admitted. "We don't understand why we took to each other so quickly either. Maybe it was fate."

"I don't believe in fate," Dar said with a smile. "It may have been the Gods."

"I doubt that," Tarrin chuckled. "Like me being friends with Allia was so important that it was demanded by the Gods. Get real."

Again there was that same sound, like the stamping of a foot. Tarrin sat up and looked around, and so did Dar. "See?" he said after a moment. "One of them is talking to us now."

Tarrin gave Dar a look, then he laughed again. "Give one knock for no, two knocks for yes," Tarrin said in a spooky, melodramatic voice. He shifted the ice against his shoulder, wincing. "These should be healed by tomorrow," he said. "I really hope that the brands don't heal over. I don't like the idea of being charbroiled every time Allia wants to prove to someone I'm an adult."

"At least you'd get used to it," Dar grinned.

"Not that, I won't," he grunted. "I've never felt pain like that before in my life. Not even my transformation into this shape was half as painful, and that was so painful I blocked most of the memory of it from my mind."

"That may be why the brands seem to be more painful," Dar said with surprising insight.

"Perhaps," he said, putting the melting ice in the wet kerchief back in the little bowl. "In any case, I'm tired, and I think I'll go to sleep."

"I'll turn down the lights."

"Don't bother. I want to sleep the other way tonight, and the light won't bother me at all."

Tarrin had an ulterior motive, of course. He didn't know if he'd have the same pain in the cat shape, and he was willing to try it and see. He undressed and changed form quickly, and, to his dismay, he discovered that the pain was just as present. He hobbled a bit, for he now had to support his weight on the branded limbs, but managed to curl up in a dark place under his bed and go to sleep.

Wake up , something seemed to whisper to him. You have to wake up .

Tarrin opened his eyes. It was dark in the room, and the sounds of Dar's breathing told him that his friend was sleeping. That was the only sound he heard. From outside the door, he could hear faint scraping noises, and then the sounds of a man breathing. Breathing that was a bit fast, Tarrin noted as he got up and padded out from under the bed, the pain in his forelimbs more or less shunted aside. He sat beside the door and hunkered down, smelling at the air drifting in from the other side. There were two human smells, both human men that smelled slightly of ale and prostitutes. And Tarrin could smell clearly the presence of steel, and of one other metal that took him a moment to identify.

Silver. The only non-magical substance other than fire or acid that could do him real injury.

His ears laying back, Tarrin listened intently as the two began to whisper.

"Is this the right room?" one asked.

"I'z be certain o' that," the other whispered back in a bizarre accent Tarrin had never heard before. "This'n be the right room, rightly so. Remember now, we'z can't kill the critter with nothing but this here sword," he instructed his companion. "It don't like silver, none at all. Now you'z be getting that magic trinket out and ready, so's the critter don't be a' hearin' us open the door. The boss done say that if we wake it up, it'll right fast send parts of us'n all over the room."

Tarrin changed form silently, his eyes flat and his ears laid back. They were here to kill him. But they didn't know that he was already awake. The thought that they were there to try to kill him filled Tarrin with a sudden rage, a rage that he fought desperately to control. For the first time in a very long time, the Cat in him rose up and tried to take control. He knew it was futile to try to outright resist it, for when it was his life in jeopardy the Cat called in a voice too powerful to deny. He had to try to channel the rage, focus it, to keep from totally snapping and going into a berzerking rage that would put innocents in danger.

"Are you's ready with the trinket?" the man whispered. Tarrin's sensitive ears pinpointed exactly where that voice had come from. And that was the man with the silver weapon, the weapon that represent the threat to his life.

Tarrin took stock in the door, measuring it carefully. Then he balled up a fist, reared back, and punched his paw through the door.

His paw opened the instant it was through, and his aim had been true, for the palm of his paw came into contact with a nose. His fingers closed around that head, wrapping more than well enough around it to get an unbreakable grip, and then he yanked the man back through the door. Tarrin noted that where his hand going through the door curiously made no noise at all, there was a sudden, loud tearing snap as the door was shattered from the force of Tarrin's pull, a sound accentuated by the shriek of the man in Tarrin's clutches. It was a small man, thin and wiry, wearing dirty townsman's clothing and with a silvered sword in his hand. The sight and smell of that weapon made Tarrin's eyes go totally flat.